Max Collins - Angel in black

Lloyd whirled and grabbed the tray of instruments from the counter and flung it all toward me, an armada of sharp flying objects riding a warm splash of water. I covered my face with my arms, and my hand took a tiny gash and my sleeves were cut, but that was all-the metal instruments bouncing off, clattering to the floor.

Still, it was enough to distract me as, lightning fast, Lloyd moved to a drawer and yanked it open and plucked out a shiny silver instrument, no delicate curette this, but an amputation cleaver, with a wide, wicked blade-just like the one he’d come at me with in that other blindingly white room, the murder lab in his Kingsbury Run basement-and he raised it high, where it caught and distorted my reflection like a Crazy House mirror, ready to swing that blade down and around, to take my head off in his trademark manner.

But I fired the nine-millimeter first, and the bullet at close range caught him alongside the edge of his cleaver-wielding right hand, just above the knuckle of his little finger, blasting through that little finger and into the next and the next and the next, shearing through the digits, which went flying, scattering, tumbling, as if he were so clumsy he had somehow managed to drop his fingers.

The cleaver clanked to the tile floor and Lloyd was screaming, holding on to his wrist, the four stumps where his fingers used to be spurting and spouting blood, a quartet of scarlet streams that-as he gripped his wrist and shook his mangled hand-traced Jackson Pollock patterns on the white counter.

Eliot came charging in, 45 in one hand, his other gripping the arm of Dr. Winter, dragging her in after him. Out in the hallway, an alarmed Fred Rubinski was peeking in.

“Jesus,” Eliot said.

“Christ,” Fred said.

“Oh dear,” Dr. Winter said.

Howling in agony, Lloyd had slid down to the floor and, kneeling like a praying man, was gripping his wrist, blood still squirting, but less so now, nothing arterial. His fingers were littered on the floor like particularly unappetizing sausages spilled from an hors d’oeuvres plate; one of them had ended up on the cleaver, which I thought was kind of poetic.

My voice was high pitched and defensive, a kid denying blame, as I said, “I didn’t kill him,” holding up my hands, one of which still grasped the nine-millimeter. “I didn’t kill him.”

Dr. Winter went to Lloyd and covered the damaged hand with a towel, glancing back at us pointedly. “I have to attend to this.”

Lloyd was crying, moaning, saying, “It hurts, oh God, it hurts!”

“Is your senile partner up to handling this?” I asked her.

She looked up at me, kneeling beside her wounded associate. “I think so. In fact, he’s more qualified than I.”

“Fred, haul the doc in, would you?”

Soon Fred was supervising as Dr. Dailey began attending to his patient with surprising speed and precision. I positioned Eliot in the outer office, to make sure we weren’t interrupted by police or any other surprise visitors. Dr. Winter found me a small bandage for my gash, and I was a little wet from the water Lloyd splashed me with; but otherwise, I was fine.

And there were still things that needed clearing up.

In Dailey’s office, I sat Dr. Winter down in one of the cushioned wooden chairs across from the older doctor’s massive mahogany desk. Perched on the edge of the desk, I loomed over her the way she had me, on my last visit here. In the back of the office, the lighted display case of jade figurines served as a glowing reminder of Dr. Dailey’s financial worth.

“I could use a cigarette,” she said.

“Go ahead.”

“They’re in that box on Wallace’s desk.”

I got her a cigarette from a Chinese-carved walnut box, and fired her up with a faux-jade dragon-shaped lighter. Absentmindedly, I lighted one up myself.

We blew smoke at each other for a while; then she asked, “Are the police going to be involved?”

“For crime-solving purposes,” I asked, “or cover-up?”

She shrugged. “In whatever manner.”

“I’m not sure yet. You do realize the man who killed the Black Dahlia works in your office.”

Averting my gaze, she sent dragon smoke out her nostrils, her red-touched lips thin and tight around the cigarette. “I admit no such thing.”

I grinned at her, my smoke mingling with hers. “I didn’t say you admitted it-just that you realized it. Funny, isn’t it?”

The big brown eyes in the oval face regarded me coldly. “What is?”

I shrugged. “How a person can be right and wrong at the same time. I think I can make this whole sorry affair go away, if you just answer a few questions.”

Now the eyes narrowed. “Who are you, Mr. Heller?”

“The best thing that’s happened to you in a long time.”

She thought about that. Then she exhaled smoke, lowering her gaze, and said, “Ask your questions.”

“How long has ‘Floyd’ worked for you?”

Still not looking at me, she said, “Not long. Late November, I believe.”

“How did you come to hire him?”

“He had good references, at least in terms of our extralegal trade.”

“He’d worked in other abortion mills, you mean.”

A tiny sneer formed on the thin lips. “That’s an ugly term.”

“For a lovely business. Where had he worked?”

“San Diego. San Francisco. Here in L.A. He’s very knowledgeable, medically speaking; he has skilled hands.”

“As of now, better make that ‘hand.’ ” That got a sharp look out of her, and when her eyes met mine, I said, “Tell me about Elizabeth Short.”

The smooth brow tried not to wrinkle, and did not succeed. “What about her?”

“She came here to your clinic-why?”

A sigh of smoke. “Dr. Dailey was from the same part of New England where the Short woman grew up. She needed an operation.”

“She had vaginal atresia.”

That got her attention. “How did you know that?”

“The way this works,” I said, giving her as nasty a smile as I could muster, “is I ask the questions. Was it the kind of operation Dr. Dailey could still handle?”

“I… I thought he could.”

“What was Dailey doing here today, Dr. Winter? He wasn’t assisting you.”

She was smoking more nervously, now. “I… I keep my eye on him, now.”

“You mean, since he killed Elizabeth Short.”

The words hit her like a physical blow, but she did her best not to show it. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Really it is-you just don’t know it. Ever hear of a guy named Arnold Wilson?”

“Common name… but I don’t think so.”

“He’s six-four, badly pockmarked, pronounced limp.”

Now the thin lips worked up a patronizing smirk. “What-no eyepatch? No parrot?”

“I’ll do the jokes, lady. Do you know him?”

“No.”

Actually, that figured. I had an idea Arnold Wilson had kept his relationship to, and with, Lloyd Watterson strictly between the boys.

“Tell me about Dr. Dailey. Tell me about how badly he’s been slipping, lately.”

She plucked tobacco off the tip of her tongue. “He’s… I told you before. He suffers from cerebral arteriosclerosis… resulting in senile dementia.”

“So when his patient, Elizabeth Short, turned up dead in that vacant lot, a block from where the doctor lives… or used to live, before heeding your siren call… you figured he’d tried to do that operation by himself, and botched it, and halved that girl for easy transport, and then absentmindedly dumped her close to home. Something like that?”

She folded her arms over the shelf of her breasts-the genie was pissed off again. “You must be insane.”

“I must be-everybody seems to think so, today. Or maybe you figured the doc was trying, in his demented way, to get back at his wife.”